Wednesday, May 2, 2012

About a week ago timid rumors about a failed coup in
one of the most outstanding Arab states — Qatar — leaked to the outskirts of
global information space. Its population is of match to a population of Udmurt
Republic (federal subject of Russia) and makes about 1.700.000, but of late it
has been laying claims for leadership within the renovated Gulf Cooperation
Council, ousting the authority of Saudi Arabia.

Small country located at the Arab Peninsula and disposing the tremendous
deposits of oil and gas (estimated explored oil deposits make up 14.5 billion
barrel and gas deposits make up 17.9 trillion cubic meters) has recently become
an information — rather than just a merely “resource” — state. Qatar Emir Hamad
bin Khalifa, who came to power in 1995 after deposing his own father Khalifa
bin Hamad Al Thani, studied in Great Britain and not in vain it seems. Year
after the coup, which brought him to the peak of Qatari power, he decreed to
establish the renowned Al Jazeera TV-channel that is famous for its “hot topic”
democracy-championing reports in Arab and English from all over the world.
Qatari oil dollars have spread around the world, nourishing Islamic extremists
in Chechnya, Dagestan and other Muslim regions of Russia, Central Asia and the
Arab states, while Al Jazeera, this Qatari analogue of “Times” (in Arabian its
name means “the Island” — traditional name of the Arab Peninsula), supported
the cash flow with the floods of misinformation and outright lies — the way it
happened in Libya and the way it happens in Syria right now. New master of
Libya have properly shown their gratitude for these deserts and now Qatar is in
charge of en entire Libyan oil trade.

Oil-gas and informational might of the Qatari Emir is prudently
supported by the military component. In 7 years the defense budget has more
than tripled — from $1.11 billion in 2001 to $4.5 billion in 2010. A long-time
regional leader, Saudi Arabia, hasn’t somehow deemed it dangerous for itself.

Perhaps, this very fact has triggered weird events in Doha on Apr 17 this
year. Information that leaked into the media is extremely scanty. If we
carefully analyze and systematize them, we may surely assume that on this day
the palace was surrounded by several units of Qatari army, which attempted to
capture Emir Hamad bin Khalifa and the members of his family. It all started
with an explosion, caused by a collision of two trucks, which was followed by a
palace assault. Emir has called for his loyal allies — Americans, whose troops
are stationed in Qatar. American special mission units repented the attacks of
unlucky rebels and evacuated the regal persons on helicopters. After that
Americans have taken the key governmental and military objects in Doha under
their control and initiated mass arrests within the military. The rest — are assumptions
and rumors, which might just happen to be true, though. Emir allegedly has an
incurable disease, which aggravates the internal competition within family. His
wife allegedly behaves inappropriately, causing the just anger of Muslims and
so on. These gossips should concentrate the public attention at the “domestic
coup” version. There is an external one, of course — Saudi, who attempted to
get rid of a rival. “Palace conspiracy” version goes as follows: there was no
coup, but merely media hype, produced by a group of Syrian hackers.

The juiciest thing though, is that Al Jazeera is silent as a dead body,
while the global media do not react to the sensational news from Doha at all.
If the silence of a Qatari channel may be explained somehow, the lack of
interest of the leading press and Internet media to such “hot topic” is utterly
obscure. It seems that not a single American is aware of Pentagon military
actions at a foreign territory. What is that: a conspiracy, funded by an
Emir-billionaire or the “global backstage” orchestrating the global opinion?
Believing into the “global backstage” has long ago become every bit as
unseemly, as believing into extraterrestrial visitors, so the first version
seems to be more trustworthy. Yet, it is still utterly impossible to believe
that a certain, though a tremendously
rich, person dressed in a white jalabea can turn all the media in the world
blind and deaf with a beck of his hand.

The only country, which joyously comments the Qatari “cheesy news”, is,
unsurprisingly, Iran — Tehran is more than willing to take advantage of a
squabble between two of its rivals. Riyadh silence may be explained with its
possible involvement into the failed dethroning attempt, yet it is plainly
impossible to explain the silent conspiracy of the rest of the world without
undermining the common faith into the open information society.